


X Marks the Person

by starsinoureyes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, But only a bit, Death, Disease, M/M, Other, also there are big parts with a OFC, animal killing methods, i hope you like her, important character death, or a lot its the apocalypse everybody is screwed, or at least it's important to me, please dont kill me for that, she has no importance in building the relationship but she is a darling, you're welcome to skip it but the OFC is very important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsinoureyes/pseuds/starsinoureyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a deadly virus spreads and kills 85% of human population, things seem to settle down a bit.<br/>But maybe its because there is so little people left that nobody can interact with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this after a very vivid dream. It has gone through a lot of changes since then (working almost 3 years on it!) I hope it won't suck. Initial goal was to write 100k but I realised my abilities are not that great so...we'll see.   
> Hopefully, all chapters are finished until September.

The year is 2025.

  
What was once a thriving and busy planet now was as peaceful and silent as prehistoric woodland. Cities were abandoned, generations lost and dead in the span of few years. The fault, as it always is, lays with humans.

  
What started out as an admirable research promising hope to billions ended when the blade of arrogance pierced through the surface. A horrible disaster struck humanity and made all scientific discoveries and predictions fall down like a house of cards.

  
It all happened so suddenly that no one was prepared enough and there weren't any actual plans for prevention and survival.

  
In 2014, near the very end of the year, a new virus named K46 was made in one of the university laboratories in the United States. It was a very famous and prestigious university and their discovery was monumental.  
The virus went through numerous experimentations as a new AIDS cure. Animals were tested and there weren't many problems, in fact most of them seemed to be cured from the disease. It gave hope for the next path in their research - testing on people.  
That was when it all went wrong. Naturally, they couldn't know it at that stage so they selected around 5000 people - both with AIDS and healthy - to be the first group ready for experimentation. They were all given shots containing K46 virus and they were supposed to inject them into their bloodstream.  
The first results - after only two weeks- were fantastic. The HIV virus in the infected was eaten by the new host in their bodies and almost all of them seemed healthy again. The people in charge of the experiment were absolutely ecstatic and hopeful for further spread of testing and later drug development. Some of them even started to write down their Nobel Prize speeches. But first they selected the next group of 10 000 people who were given the shots with K46.  
After about a month it was when things started to get bad. People who were in the testing started to throw up violently and suffered terrible headaches, and pain all over their body. The virus may have eaten the HIV but it didn't stop there. It was slowly eating the patients alive. After a week and a half the person would die.  
It, however, wasn't the most horrible part. Some patients, after they discovered the shots were miraculously working, gave the shots to their friends and it was over 25 000 people who at least once injected K46 in their bodies.

  
Soon after the leading scientists discovered the faults of their new drug they tried to quickly cover up their tracks and stop further spread of the virus. Unfortunately, virus was much too clever for their liking. It rooted itself in bodily fluids: spit, cough, tears and every other human body possesses and spread through them. Once it got into your system you couldn't get rid of it. And only small amount of it was enough to attach itself to your red cells and grow into a deadly monster.  
While the testings were being covered up and the damage was trying to be covered, the virus was spreading fast. 25 000 soon became 50 000 and it only went up from there. Patients with families (both with AIDS and healthy) spread the virus on their children, who in turn spread it on their school friends and colleagues because it coincided with flu season. Public transportation was probably the worst. It would be easier if the first patients were from one part of the country so the epidemic would be easily contained, yet the leading scientist thought it would be better to test people from different parts of the country to see how the virus acts with different genetics and environment.  
If you combine the quick spread, deadliness of the virus and inability to find a cure (they tried that as well) the end the humanity saw was inevitable.  
It took the public around a year to figure out a deadly disease was among them, but it didn't cause a panic. At first. Faith was put at large in their medicine, hospitals and doctors to find a suitable cure because most of them assured it was going to be found because they found out in such an early stage of spread. And the ways of spread and symptoms were largely unknown or made up. It was only when after almost six months big number of people started dying. Almost literally, they dropped like flies. Elders, children and adults alike.

  
Nobody was trusted anymore, you could never know who the carrier of K46 virus was, and people tried to find different methods of coping with the disaster. Some moved away - trying to distance themselves from the center of epidemic - and it caused traffic jams in some parts of the country. Especially in more crowded parts in the North. There were shut downs at Canadian-American border, few minor airports on the East Coast were over-booked and train stations in few central states were crowded. It only furthered the spread of the virus.  
Others tried to lock themselves in - hoarding supplies and living without human contact for weeks. It didn't serve much purpose because eventually they had to go out and restock (if they lived in big cities). In the South they immersed themselves in religion even more and attended group praying sessions. Big portion of the nation remained sceptical. Even with the growing number of dead and big spread of the disease some firmly believed it was some sort of government propaganda that wanted them to live in fear. People like these got infected easily with the virus and spread it even more.  
In the very first year since the spread almost 10 million died from the symptoms of the virus and almost double of that was infected.  
It was no surprise that the virus crossed the ocean and appeared on other continents as well. At first when the news of the new disease got to other places of the world, the leaders of more powerful countries tried to make a big quarantine out of the United States but it proved so so inefficient that it produced only more panic.  
Virus mingled around the world freely and hit hard on the poorest parts where so many people died they had to be buried in massive joint burial places. Soon they ran out of burial space. Australia was hit last. They were at least far better prepared for the virus than the rest of the world.  
The media dubbed the virus "the 21st century Black Plague".

After a year and a half of blind panic and unpreparedness for the new situation, things seemed to settle down. There was a new social structure and habits people forcibly developed and it worked. The virus was still there, lurking mostly in places where there were big groups of people living. People still got sick and new laws were in order to protect the healthy (for now still a majority). Infected were left on their own, far beyond borders of healthy communities and they had to fend for themselves. They were mostly in the suburbs with the rest of the infected where they all waited for their deaths.  
Knowledge of the virus and its spread was quickly accumulated and most of the healthy people knew how to behave around others. Contact between people was on bare minimum. Even families hugged less. Overall intimacy dropped severely. It caused a surge in development of depression and other mental illnesses, and more and more people attempted suicide. Some joined the banished and lived with them, helping with clearing out houses of corpses and making the places more bearable to live for the sick. They helped them with their bleeding and pains - although they made their last days better they still found themselves in their shoes after a month.  
It was horrible to see what happened to the economy, health organisations and food supply. Army was in command of law. Because of the strict rules and laws put on one-on-one contact between people, they slowly stopped going to work in fear they will get infected. Companies then only hired really poor and desperate people who even with all precautions got sick and it all ultimately caused big damages on the stock market and lots of money was lost.

  
Of course, people still had to clothe themselves and eat. People who lived in more remote and rural places were safe (both from the illness and starvation), but people in large capitals and surrounding suburbs were starting to starve. Nobody wanted to stock shelves because there wasn't anything to be stocked. Nobody produced goods for chain markets and massive numbers of unemployed hit as well. Only plastic gloves were produced and lasted for the next two years until factories in China and other similar ones were infected with K46. It all caused for another massive migration of people. They went to more approachable and agriculture rich places.  
It was then that another wave of epidemic struck because they had to go through the infected suburbs and few rouge groups attacked them. Unfortunately, there were groups in the infected areas that believed that the new laws and rules were unfair and wanted the healthy to feel their pain. They sought revenge. They climbed into the guarded communities and cities at night, separated in smaller groups and crawled into people's homes. They sneakily moved around, trying not to wake the residents and peed on their tables, licked their toothbrushes and door handles. They left their fluids on every surface that would put the virus in their bodies faster.

  
In some ways, their rage was justified (but not their actions too). It wasn't easy for the infected once they realised they were sick. First the fear of the unknown hit them, then they were kicked out of the society - basically became second class citizen sentenced to death - and their life wasn't the same as before. They were forced to find a shelter in the suburbs or remote places where nobody lived and join others as sick as themselves. More often than not, they slept in filthy corners before a group found them and they spend their remaining days with them. While they were in groups, they slept in warm and mostly clean places. There was no pressure for bonding; most of them had a month to live - what was the use? Some more fortunate who ate healthier lived up to six months. Screams of agony were heard each night and day - and the knowledge you'll be in their shoes in few weeks plagued everyone’s minds. Smell of death and rotten bodies were everyday occurrence but everybody pitched in to bury each dead they found and they tried to cover the smell.

  
Few who weren't found on time were devoured by animals who more often than not stumbled into their habitats.  
It was all very strange because the virus was completely numb to animals and plants. They weren't even carriers of the virus – with few exceptions like some species of mosquito. Apparently something in animals' stomachs destroyed the RNA of the virus. Nobody dared to examine that further.

Population of Earth dwindled rapidly in the next five years. Only those who lived in far away places where virus couldn't reach and those who protected themselves severely (like living in underground and well stocked shelters) survived.

  
Today, only 1 billion remained living on Earth. They live in healthy groups or they fend for themselves as individuals. Virus lives scarcely. There are hardly any people living in such number for it to feed freely and they aren't coming in contact so much for it to spread properly. Both humanity and the virus were dying. Virus because of lack of food and people because the fear of intimacy with others was still freshly ingrained in their minds. The remains of humanity had to develop skills that their ancestors had. Hunting animals, collecting fruits and vegetables and seeking shelter.

  
The only thing that seemed to prosper was wildlife- growth of plants and animals alike in number and versatility. In only five years they were going strong and healing. Becoming true with their inner nature and without fear of the Man.  
In the end, if you count in the size of continents and the remaining number of people, you can easily conclude that some groups (especially in Asia, Africa and Americas) didn't see another human being in months.


	2. Group of Three Walk Through the Trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the rest of the fic is under serious re-writing session. Please bear with me while I try to finish the first draft and post it here. My current plan is to be done in 2017, however long it may take. I just want to finish it.

Thank you for your patience.


End file.
